The First Batch Of Ouya Consoles Will Ship To Developers At The End Of The Month

With the Wii U out now and the next Xbox coming as early as next year, it’s easy to forget about the fourth new console that’s on the way: the Ouya. The console’s Kickstarter raised close to $9 million, transforming an ambitious experiment into a full-blown next-gen console. In case you’re unfamiliar with it, the Ouya is an open-source Android platform that’s all about making it as easy (and cheap) as possible for developers, both big and small, to get their games out into the world. I hope it succeeds, because it could potentially lead to many indie developers — particularly those who work in the horror genre — to skip the hoops and extra costs that Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo put in front of studios who develop for their platforms. More after the break!

In a post on the Ouya developer blog, things seem to be going pretty well for the console so far. “To the hundreds of developers who backed us through Kickstarter to get their hands on our advance dev consoles: Mark your calendars! On December 28, they leave the factory and should arrive within a couple of days (we’ve heard that Turkey and Russia might take a bit longer). Yes, we are shipping these to you on time, as promised.

The dev consoles are an early version of the OUYA console and controller designed for developers to test their games on OUYA. Our Kickstarter developers are the first to get a crack at ‘em! We’re psyched to have you on board, and we can’t wait to see what pours from your brain!

Of course, when the final consoles ship, EVERY OUYA will be a dev console. We told you that already. What we didn’t tell you was that the advance dev consoles you ordered are pretty special – you’ll know what I mean when you open yours. They’re rare drops.”

Did anyone here fund the Ouya during its Kickstarter campaign, and are you interested in getting a console for yourself, or are the next batch of next-gen consoles from “The Big Three” enough for you? If you’re not sure, you probably haven’t heard about one of its launch titles, Human Element.